We have embodied certain ideas about the behavior of biomedical groups in a prototype of the Virtual Notebook, a technologically extended analog to the ordinary notebook so common as the repository of experimental and clinical data in medicine. The principal features of the Virtual Notebook are a scheme for representing complex information structures, a communication manager for facilitating task assignment and coordination, and a facility for automatically importing relevant information from external sources such as libraries. The Virtual Notebook will present a graphical interface that creates the illusion that various information resources are part of a single resource running on a single computer, despite the fact that the elements reside on different computers, perhaps in different institutions. In this proposal, we set forth a plan to implement an expanded version of the Virtual Notebook and to deploy it in a variety of settings at Baylor. Additionally, we will develop a number of information resources for integration within the Virtual Notebook. Four biomedical groups will work with us to refine the Virtual Notebook and to integrate it into their operations - The Baylor- Methodist Multi-Organ Transplant Center, The Molecular Biology Information Resource, the Cellular Neurophysiology Laboratory from the Department of Neurology and the research group from the Department of Physiology and Molecular Biophysics. To the extent possible, we will create the Virtual Notebook by knitting together existing technology and by adhering to de facto standards to meet the needs of these groups. In this way, we will facilitate the wide dissemination of the Virtual Notebook as our major IAIMS system a Baylor. The complexities of biomedical research require group effort. Success depends not only on the creativity of the scientists in a group, but also on their ability to solve difficult problems of task coordination and information integration. Groups that wish to prosper must continually improve their effectiveness in dealing with these problems, and advanced information technology integrated can be a valuable aid to them. We believe that the integration of that technology we propose in the Virtual Notebook will prove to be very important for a large number of the scientists at Baylor and will bring to them many of the benefits of the IAIMS concept.
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